seriously, though, this could not have happened to a 'better' company. hope apple has a major headache from this. I'd buy a ticket to the event if one is ever sold.

yes, the more evil you are, the more we cheer as you get burned by the very weapons you use to attack others.

Karma is as karma does. Apple have indeed earned this, but don't be too surprised if it works out in Apple's favor. Voice recognition and commands could easily have considerable Prior Art to lean on, though winning any suit in this case could dilute Apple's patent portfolio, too.

I have the following patents:Answers: #8,704,338,654Answers which require thought: #8,704,338,655Answers which are correct: #8,704,338,656Dumb silence: #8,704,338,657

With the patent office rubber stamping patents, I for one, do not see any meaningful use for patents, in the tech industry, other than for defensive purposes (I love IBM in this regard). So yeah I would be fine with Google retaliating with a FRAND patent to a startup that sues Google (even if the patent is really innovative and really patent worthy (and life saving (actually, especially when life saving))). I would also rather see the industry keep innovative ideas a trade secret, rather than try to patent

That is probably true - I deal with a number of manufacturers from China on a daily basis and none of them are really concerned about cloning a competitor's product for us if we desire it. I just found it funny is all.

this may be too obvious, but; why not force them to work 7x24? that way there *is* no time-off and no way to make manufacturing runs sans logo. keep the factory going 24x7 and rotate even more workers thru, giving them normal working shifts, each. reduced hours, even; just keep the factory always making your goods and shipping its output directly to you via your carriers. when you are done, come pick up the tools and destroy them or bring them back with you.

If your orders are large enough, it's certainly feasible. They're obviously not going to have the same workers working 24x7, that's why we invented "shifts" long ago. But the factory itself can certainly be kept running 24x7, in fact it's a better use of resources to do so rather than letting it sit idle for part of the day.

This pretty much answers your question. If you want to control the manufacturing then buy your own facility. Barring that you simply tell them how many widgets you want and when they complete that many widgets they can do whatever they want. When company apl, cpq, xyz, etc. want to sell a widget they many times will just send a spec sheet to Foxconn, [foxconn.com] Quanta, [quantatw.com] Jabil, [jabil.com] etc. and the manufacturing co. will design the widget to meet those specs. Kinda hard to tell a company the size and scope of Quanta how to do t

That is probably true - I deal with a number of manufacturers from China on a daily basis and none of them are really concerned about cloning a competitor's product for us if we desire it. I just found it funny is all.

Well then, probably serves you right if you find out that they're cloning your product as well...

What you have to remember with China is it is not a corporation suing Apple but in effect the government suing Apple.

Companies in China belong to China – You can't trade in China, you trade with China. You can't go to a company wanting to trade, you have to deal with a government official asking you want to trade with China.

Most people who run these large companies rise through local and central governments, many becoming government officials. They have huge influence on all parts of China, think of it like a Masonic society – A magic handshake with the judge, you know the case will be favourable to you winning.

Why should they be? The USA wasn't aggressive in protecting British IP holders from infringement back in the 17-1800s, in fact they didn't enforce that at all, and the USA made a bunch of money as a result.

But doesn't hypocrisy depend on contradiction at the same time? In your example, the American contradiction is separated by 200-300 years (not to mention great differences in federal authority between US of 1700's and US of today), whereas the Chinese contradiction is simultaneous in occurrence (and occurring under the same government). So the former doesn't quite fit the definition, while the latter is a perfect fit.

Perhaps, but it is a great example of history repeating itself. Back in the 1700s, Britain was the major world power, and made a lot of money with IP laws and demanded that everyone else respect them, and instead America ignored them and made cheaper copies and made a fortune at it; before long, Britain was a has-been and America was the major power.

Now, a couple hundred years later, history is repeating itself. America, which got rich partially by ignoring IP laws and making cheaper copies of stuff, is bitching and whining that others are copying their stuff and demanding their IP laws be enforced worldwide, while China ignores them and makes cheaper copies of stuff and is making a fortune doing it.

It's going to be a while before the Chinese suffer, as they're currently ascendant, much like the Americans were in the 1800s and first half of the 1900s. Sure, it may eventually fall apart, but it'll be a while because for them to go down, someone else needs to be doing better than them, and no one is at the moment.

However, I don't really see how a nation can rise without the associated nationalism; the two seem to go hand-in-hand. Humans are still tribal creatures, and nations are just extensions of tri

I'm not so sure about that. Even America's Founders thought IP was important, and enshrined it in the Constitution. However, they also had an important phrase included there: "a limited time", which the first Copyright Act set to 14 years (plus an optional 14 year extension), back in a time when electronic communications did not exist and everything was much slower. There were a lot of important inventions in America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the US Patent Office was utilized a lot here; I t

Just because things were done differently in older times doesn't mean that the modern way is better. Invading countries is bad IMO, but we still do it all the time. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that perpetual copyright terms are a good thing for society, and in fact are very damaging, yet that's what we have now, while back in those days they had much more sensible copyright terms.

My history is sketch but didn't the British have very tight controls on colonial trade? As in, they could only trade with GB unless it was approved by an official. Also, all trade out of the Americas could only be in raw materials, no constructed goods. Trade into America was in high end goods. This way the British commanded high prices for their goods and low prices for what they bought.

That kind of relationship is probably why there was ip infringement. But i don't remember the colonies exporting cou

Yes, I'm talking about post-Revolutionary War; during the late 1700s and 1800s, the Americans profited handsomely on "pirated" materials. They also did a lot of industrial espionage; I can't remember the device now, but one particularly famous case was for some machine whose design was stolen and brought to America, where they made copies.

But yes, before the War, the British practiced mercantilism [wikipedia.org] which basically bled colonies of their raw material resources and enriched the mother country at the expense o

Actually I think china is pretty aggressive in protecting its industries from foreign patent infringement it just isn't so aggressive in protecting western countries from infringement.

Actually, most countries are like that. I'm fairly certain it's the same in the US as well. Infringe on a foreign country's copyright/patent/whatever? No big deal. But infringe on OUR copyright/patent/whatever? Very Big Deal(tm).

Plenty of pirated video suppliers operating commercially in the US that aren't prosecuted because t

HEY, LOOK AT THOSE CHINESE BUSINESSES AND LOOK HOW BAD THEY ARE! Meanwhile US companies hire illegal workers, sue everyone and everything, lie to regulators, blackmail anyone trying to prosecute them or investigate them, pay media to outright lie to US citizens, and steal from US citizens.

Until we clean up things at home why is anyone in the US talking about China? Wholly crap man, you do realize that banks are still foreclosing on houses where owners don't even have mortgages right? You do realize that things like Honeywell vs. Nest are still happening right? You do realize that Merck was found falsifying reports and documents to the FDA which caused millions of people to get sick and in some cases die just to make pharmaceutical companies lots of money right? Hell, the DOJ illegally sold guns to Drug cartels in Mexico and nobody even talks about it let alone has been prosecuted or punished.

Don't mistake what I say for saying China is magically better than the US. What I'm saying is that we are so fucked up right now we have no right to bitch about anyone else.

30% of Slashdotters are from outside the US, most of them from Europe. Europe isn't entirely free of problems, so does that mean they should quit criticizing the US? I think not, but it seems you think they should. Am I understanding you correctly?

http://slashdot.org/poll/549/where-do-you-live [slashdot.org]If we accept that Jar Jar is equally despised around the world. This is even allowing for the error of leaving out Africa, which could account for even more non-US slashdot readers.

You understand very correctly, but I guess it could be subjective. IP law in the US is horrid, unfair, costs society and our economy tremendous amounts of money. The EU has had a much better track record with IP, so I guess you could complain about the US's IP policies and laws. With that said, if your Government was full of corruption, you were fighting 2 legal wars and several illegal wars, News was reclassified as "Entertainment" (Thank you for that Supreme Court ruling by the way), and I could go on

Actually I don't think you do understand correctly. The poster is saying that the US has lots of things to be ashamed of so those in the US shouldn't be denigrating Chinese business practice as it comes across as hypocritical.

Just for the record, from the comments I have read a fair amount of slashdotters are Aussie. But that may just be because they come out of the woodwork when you talk about our great southern land in some way.

Indeed the US does have many things to be ashamed of, but should people like you and me, citizens who are not intimately involved with political or corporate organizations, limit the scope of our criticism just because we are within the same borders as corrupt entities? For instance would you tell a Frenchman to shut up about US involvement in Iraq because of France's involvement in Libya?

Pretty much, yeah you should not be telling a Frenchman anything in my opinion and here is why: You and I may not be politicians or mega billionaires, but how do you begin to fix problems with our own Government? Learn what our problems are, educate people to the problems, vote, and petition and force change. If we do nothing, or express apathy what will change? It's a matter of where we, as citizens, need to spend our energy or things can only get worse.

but that may just be because they come out of the woodwork when you talk about our great southern land in some way.

I learned an internet lesson once in the ingame chat of a video game. Do NOT talk about cars with Aussies. You will unintentionally and severely insult them somehow. It is bound to happen. Fun for a while, but I eventually got tired of googling the insults that I didn't understand.

What kicked the whole thing off was me saying that the new Camaro was basically a Vauxhall. Kaboom. "Only (string of expletives removed) Pommies call it a Vauxhall". I didn't know what pommie meant until that day, I am American..

I think Europeans have a lot more leeway to criticize Americans than Americans have room to criticize Chinese.

Europe is having some problems, true, but they seem to mainly be due to trying to have a monetary union without having a full political union, which sounded like a good idea at first but doesn't seem to be working out too well in practice unfortunately because different countries want to manage their money differently (some are very frugal, some like to spend it like a drunken sailor and then make u

What about blatant corruption in Eastern EU nations? Have Western EU nations done enough to try to solve this problem? What about the corruption in the energy politics of Europe, in its dealings with Gazprom, African dictatorships, and the Middle East?

Do you think Europeans should shut up about the US when these problems still exist? I think we, as people who are outsiders to these organizations and corporations, should be free to criticize them all. However, it seems many in this thread think that just bec

I normally ignore AC posts, but do want to point out that you are absolutely wrong about many things. I'd recommend that you go read the full brief of leaked documents, testimony, etc..

Now, as a matter of law: If the DOJ pays for John Doe to go in to a gun store and buy guns, then pays John Doe to sell those guns across the border, the DOJ is responsible right? Without the DOJ funding, it simply would not have happened. So you are absolutely wrong. The DOJ did sell guns to the drug cartels, the fact th

And I stand corrected: The actual sales and purchases were funded by the ATF, FBI, and who knows what else will be found. As the Government Agencies declare "Help, we need executive powers to stop them from looking in to us!" who knows how much we will be able to find. Right now, they are all extremely tight lipped and declaring everything they can touch as classified. What we are getting are leaks, the DOJ is just covering things up so nobody knows anything.

The Chinese sharks smelled bl$$d with the whole "ipad" name debacle...

That's exactly what I was thinking. "Hey, they fell for that. We got a mark! What else have we got that we can shake 'em down for?" Now they're pouring over everything in their patent and copyright portfolio to see what else applies. I wonder if they have rounded corners in there.

yesterday some Chinese company f**d apple over the name IPad. And now this company is screwing apple over siri. Its all Apple's bad karma because the other side apple is screwing Samsung, and others...

Microsoft negotiates license fees. Apple looks for injunctions banning sales. There's a world of difference between the two. Manufacturers probably *would* just cough up cash and license these patents from Apple just to save the court costs if Apple would allow them to pursue that option.

Motorola claims they are not paying Microsoft a red cent for any crap software patents such as "rendering text before images". MS filed suit and Moto hit back with H.264 patents looking to get X-Box banned in the USA and possibly all versions of Windows with h.264 embedded.

not at all, those Chinese guys will waste their time inventing complicated stuff that works. Don't they know the true solution is to patent the rectangle, one-clicking, or slide-to-unlock and go straight to court?

I think this is the real story here. From the time to file to approval is about 1.5 years. In the U.S., it's 5 to 8 years [inventionstatistics.com]. We cannot hope to compete if these numbers are real, and, apparently, they are.

I think it's intentionally 5 to 8 years for a patent to be granted in the USA. The clock starts ticking when it's granted. So they can file, hold it for a few years making minor revisions from time to time and then surface for a lawsuit the moment anyone does anything innovative.

Apple has at least 20 years of prior art to fall back on here. While it didn't always work exceedingly well, I clearly remember telling the Mac in my high school library's material office (where us helper rats did things like laminate posters for teachers) things like "Marie, run Myst," and a minute later, hearing the opening theme play.

Robert Heinlein's character "Mike" in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" describes pretty elaborately everything Siri or the Xiao iRobot do. But back in 1966. Responses based on partial data input, voice recognition, even learning humor in terms of funny and not funny. Not to mention being part of a global communications network. Most of the patents I see in the lawsuits should've been denied for not being novel, being roughly half a century late in their invention.

Who even cares at this point? There's eight hundred trillion of these lawsuits filed every day. Sitting there caring or rooting for or hating on one side or the other is exactly the distraction the sociopaths in charge want.

apple is bad, but china doesnt even pretend to give a shit about other peoples IP. I personally hope they keep this up though, pissing off enough companies to finally storm in and nail everyone in china making knock off crap, and using trademarked logos on everything they have no right to.

I hope it stops everyone from using voice recognition. Very slow, incredibly error prone, completely non-private, intrusive, and dangerous. If its too dangerous to pick up the phone and dial, maybe you should be concentrating on your driving instead of talking? Non-private is eventually the supermarket cashier is going to have to recite your credit card number out loud instead of typing it, or the bank teller speak your SS number, is distinct from intrusive in that its annoying enough that I have to list

Voice recognition software is an interesting beast. My girlfriend has a higher pitched, almost lilting voice, and she can't for the life of her get her Droid to do what she tells it to, regardless of how clearly she speaks. On the other hand, her phone seems to pick up my voice even if I'm whispering whisper.

This makes for amusing moments when I'm driving us around and she's navigating: she's trying to get the damn thing to work, while I have to bite my tongue, hoping an important freeway sign doesn't

Eh, prior art doesn't matter to the patent office. They upheld apple's patent on the look of the ipad even after seeing what appears to look and behave exactly like the ipad in the movie "2001" from 1968.